Health
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" alt="Lay counsellors: the unheralded backbone of South Africa’s HCT programme" />
Lay counsellors: the unheralded backbone of South Africa’s HCT programme
25 March 2011
The introduction of lay counsellors as a means of reducing the strain on nursing staff was a novel method of planning for and implementing HIV/Aids initiatives, although the model has not been without its challenges.
Written by Rachel Dlamini, programme specialist in HIV/Aids at Tshikululu Social Investments
South Africa’s response to HIV and Aids has been marred by years of HIV denialism at the highest level of government, and by fruity treatment recommendations that made our health ministry an international laughing stock. The announcement last year of revised HIV and Aids treatment protocols and a large-scale HIV counselling and testing (HCT) campaign was therefore a welcome shift in approach.
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" alt="HIV/Aids: Five countries to watch in 2011" />
HIV/Aids: Five countries to watch in 2011
7 February 2011
Things are generally more positive on the global HIV front: the number of new infections is down, treatment figures are up and headway is being made in the fight to end discrimination against people living with HIV.However, there is still work to be done and progress in the fight against the pandemic has not been even. The humanitarian news and analysis service, IRIN/PlusNews lists five countries that could determine the future of the pandemic this year. This article originally appeared on 28 January 2011.
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" alt="Delays in drug registration hamper access" />
Delays in drug registration hamper access
5 January 2011
The MCC should streamline its operations and conserve valuable resources by simply approving drugs already approved by stringent regulatory authorities.
Written by Jasson Urbach, a director of the Health Policy Unit (a division of the Free Market Foundation) and a director of Africa Fighting Malaria.
In the South African market, Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) protection lasts for a maximum of 20 years but the registration process consumes a significant portion of the time period allowed to recoup costs due to the lengthy period of time (sometimes up to 5 years) taken by the Medicines Control Council (MCC) from the date of submission of a drug to the date of approval. This lack of time to recover costs reduces the commercial value of the product, deters research and development (R&D) and hampers access to medicines, which could have potentially deleterious consequences for patients that need these drugs.
Delays in registration also have the unintended consequence of potentially opening the door for fakes and/or sub-standard drugs. Consider for example some doctors and/or patients that are aware of the availability of certain drugs in other countries. These individuals will do what they have to in order to get hold of the drug that they are after.
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" alt="South Africa: HIV positive" />
South Africa: HIV positive
30 November 2010
Even with all the money that has gone into finding a cure or at the least finding some surefire method of prevention, when it comes to HIV, we are essentially in the same place we were 10 years ago.
Written by Juliana Thornton, CSI practitioner at Tshikululu Social Investments and Joshua Murphy, who works with Medical Care Development International in KwaZulu-Natal.
There are an estimated 5.7 million people in this country living with Aids, more than any other country in the world. The most recent statistics of South Africa’s HIV/Aids epidemic from the annual HIV Antenatal Clinic Survey released this month is that our prevalence rate for pregnant women is “œstable” at 29.2%.
This means about 1 in 3 women walking into an antenatal clinic are HIV+, a condition which has major implications for their unborn children, if untreated. Prevention of mother-to-child HIV transmission through delivery of antiretroviral drugs can reduce the risk of HIV transmission to below 2%. But there are major gaps in delivery of this effective intervention.
